Florida to end vaccine mandates, other states form alliances amid federal turmoil

By HPN Staff

Florida may eliminate all vaccine mandates as several Democratic-led states build regional alliances to maintain requirements, highlighting widening divides in public health policy amid shifting federal guidance.

The move would make Florida the first state in the U.S. to stop requiring vaccines for schoolchildren. Florida also leads the nation in nonmedical exemptions, with more than 10,000 recorded for the 2024–25 school year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

What remains unclear is the legislative action that may be required to implement a full repeal. State law allows health officials to add vaccines to the mandate but not remove any. Gov. Ron DeSantis stated that the Department of Health has the authority to end mandates not explicitly written into state law, but anything codified will require legislative approval.

Current vaccine mandates in Florida cover polio, diphtheria, measles, whooping cough, mumps, tetanus, chickenpox, Haemophilus influenzae type b, hepatitis B and pneumococcal disease. Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo framed the decision as a matter of personal liberty. 

“Who am I to tell you what you should put in your body?” he said. “What you put into your body is because of your relationship with your body and God. The government does not have that right.”

Why it matters

The debate escalated after Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime vaccine critic, dismissed all 17 members of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, The committee has historically reviewed data and issued national vaccine recommendations. 

The Food and Drug Administration has also moved to end COVID-19 vaccine mandates, issuing guidance that drew criticism.

In response, California, Oregon and Washington announced a “health alliance” to independently review data and set guidance for residents. Governors in seven Northeast states, including New York and Massachusetts, are considering a similar effort after meeting in late August, with public health scholars calling for states to take immunization policy into their own hands. 

The bigger picture

According to the World Health Organization, global vaccine mandates have saved at least 154 million lives over the past 50 years, most of them infants. Yet the U.S. faces rising risks: measles cases are at their highest levels since the disease was declared eliminated in 2000, coinciding with growing exemption rates among schoolchildren.

Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, warned that fractured state policies could worsen public mistrust. 

“If you can’t trust the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices, and with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as the head of HHS, you can’t trust the CDC — as we always have up to this point — what do you do? … Science is losing its place as a source of truth, and that is a dangerous time,” he said.

An HHS spokesperson countered that the immunization advisory committee “remains the scientific body guiding immunization recommendations in this country” and pledged that policy would be grounded in “rigorous evidence and Gold Standard Science, not the failed politics of the pandemic.” 

A Washington Post–Kaiser Family Foundation poll found 82 percent of Florida parents say public schools should require vaccines against diseases such as measles and polio, while 17% say they should not. Results were similar nationally.